One or two isn't bad, but the first Thought Knot would come in after the 4th lodestone. Its also hard to say if I don't just want metamorphs to follow lodestones. Two isn't bad, maybe 2 Metamorph 2 Thought Knot.

@defector the reason I ask is that TKS has been everywhere lately. When I tested it the card was amazing, only the casting cost held it back. And it's so much harder for people to deal with. I really think people would run it as a one of if LSG came back.

I think we'd find room for it in the 75,no arguing there, I may even side in an entire playset in some must just because I know my opponent is bringing in 7-8 pieces of hate for me. But the deck would still start with 4 LSG then worry about the Thought-Knots. Maybe 2 main 2 side? That would be pretty sick:)

Not that easy to answer this...
We'll need some time to figure out if decks can adapt to this TKS.
Metagame correctly shifted to answer LDS Golem with Bolt, Dack Fayden and others...
Another very good thing about TKS is that they make you play cavern which is a house...

If I were to play (and I'm not about to), I'd want to play a Shop Control list. There are no Shop Control lists, there are only "Shop" Aggro. Even then, is it really Shop Aggro? It's Eldrazi Aggro. Jaco's list and the White Eldrazi list have both removed Workshops from the deck, and why not? Mishra's Workshop doesn't help cast many of the threats that you're running. They'd be better as more Ancient Tombs. Eldrazi have supplanted the entire pillar. When Mishra's Workshop can't be used to cast your threats, you aren't a Workshop deck anymore.

Lodestone Golem was a four-of in every deck that I played from its inception to its restriction. But while I played Lodestone Golem, I (nearly exclusively) played Shop Control lists. Lodestone lent itself to both Shop Aggro (Phyrexian Shops, Ravager Shops (pre-restriction)) and other variations of Control (Martello Shops, Espresso Stax, Terra Nova, MUD Marinara, etc.).

I identify as a Workshop pilot, specifically a Workshop Control pilot. This part of the pillar has not been resurrected since the restriction of Chalice (Chalice was restricted, the Workshop Control decks went away, Lodestone Golem was restricted, and the remaining Workshop decks went away, having been supplanted by Eldrazi decks).

If I got Lodestone Golem back, I would conceivably be willing to sleeve up a deck again. That said, that isn't going to happen anytime soon, if it happens at all.

I built a MUD Depths list before the Lodestone restriction, and I never really got to find out just how good, or bad, the deck was. Bob Maher took the deck and played it post-restriction in the VSL play-in tournament, subtracting three Lodestones, and loading up on other Shop cards. Lodestone Golem was absolutely critical to that deck, and I was not surprised to see Bob beaten while running the list. Lodestone Golem may have forced the Shop pillar to orbit its sphere, but there was a reason for it; it was the best unrestricted card in the pillar, and it was a critical component to every Workshop deck.

While Lodestone sits on the sideline, any real work or innovation that I'd have put in is put on hold, or shelved forever. Who knows.

One of Shop Control's worst matchups (back in the day) was Shop Aggro. 5C Stax had a problem in dealing with Juggernauts and Su-Chis. The current iterations of Eldrazi are comically powerful upgrades over the Shop Aggro decks of 2008 (and before). Even if Lodestone Golem came back, and I had the opportunity to play updated versions of many of the old lists that I ran, or work on something entirely new, the advent of Eldrazi would demand a complete rebuild, and a trashing of the decks that have been run in the past. Eldrazi is that good. The deck is very much for real.

If I'm looking for silver linings to this storm of clouds, there is something wonderful about a Magic player being able to spend less than what they spend to play some Standard decks, and play Vintage, seriously. That's beautiful, and it's a potential selling point for many pilots to get into the format. While there is something great in that, there is also something terrible in seeing the format continue to warp. Lodestone was hit, and we entered the inbred Gush metagame. Eldrazi have supplanted Gush for the time being, and they are now the king of the hill, putting up top eights everywhere. What's next? Oath? Storm? Before Lodestone was restricted, we had some measure of balance. Now we have this.

I have not had nearly as much experience playing Mishra's Workshop as other people.
I bought the cards on MTGO right before the restriction and it hit me hard. I did learn that the effect that TKS brings is really, really good. It gave me an angle of attack I'd never had. It felt close to having counterspells in my deck.
I think though that tks gets even harder to cast with LSG back, and LSG being castable with your best land really seals the deal. But I'd still want to try to run one or two if I could manage it.

There is a reason Shops running Reality Smasher doesn't exist anymore - the Shops manabase cannot consistently cast Smasher especially when pressured. Thought-Knot Seer at four mana is sometimes a reach but the effect makes it worth it (Andy and Brian tested it thoroughly in the lead-in to NYSE and that was the conclusion that we reached). Throw in 3 Lodestone Golems as an additional tax and Thought-Knot Seer becomes too unreliable. Even if you keep the current Shops configuration of 4 TKS and 1 Lodestone Golem, that doesn't mean other Shops players will do the same and you will quickly find yourself an underdog to the opponent running 4 LSG and multiple Metamorphs. Very quickly, the metagame will move back to the previously LSG lists.

And that's the crux of it - Lodestone Golem died for the current mixture of Shops, Eldrazi, and Humans/Hatebears lists that have taken up its 20-30% of the metagame. I just wish the DCI would have killed Gush along with it to allow such diversification to happen to the 30-40% of the metagame made up of generic Gush decks with interchangeable win conditions.

"One key to the continued health of Magic is diversity. It is vitally important to ensure that there are multiple competitive decks for the tournament player to choose from."

@ChubbyRain you make perfectly good points, but I do think reality smasher shops hasn't completely vanished.

This thread was designed to be a thought exercise, I like thinking about these things. Specifically the recent performances by ravager/tks shops made me think. It's almost as if that deck wasn't even hurt much.

Your point about Eldrazi being harder to cast due to opposing lodestones is one I hadn't actually considered. I think that would be a big problem.